E3 2014: Nintendo Keeps it Short & Sweet

Nintendo’s digital event this year was a lean affair. There was no talk of the future of the Wii U, of re-adjusting focus or vague allusions to health and well-being projects in the distant future. Instead, Nintendo focused on a handful of great-looking games in its brief run-time, and peppered the discussion around them with typical weird charm. In all the right ways, it was Very Nintendo.

Aside from Robot Chicken, that is, which brought a distinctively Western sense of humour to the proceedings. I don’t know about you, but I felt a little weird seeing a stop-motion-animated Reggie Fils-Aime blast a demanding fan with a fire-flower. It was kinda funny, but Nintendo never takes shots at its fans, literally or otherwise, no matter how demanding they may be.

A bum note then, but quickly forgotten, as the next thing we see is Fils-Aime and Nintendo President Iwata going head to head in a Smash Bros. style live-action brawl. This is the sort of preposterous spectacle that makes Nintendo’s presentations so enjoyable; while Microsoft and Sony are all business with their stiff shoulders and nervous jokes, Nintendo’s execs are beating the living crap out of each other. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U led the charge with a reveal that we can now import our Miis into the game and choose from a variety of play styles and special moves, and hey, even Elijah Wood and Ice-T can join in for some reason. A montage of Smash Bros. for the 3DS was also shown, but the segment ended on a damp note when it was revealed that release date for that version has been bumped from the U.S. summer to October 3.

Nintendo’s ambitious toy project ‘Amiibo’ made its proper, fleshed-out debut today, and although communication around its actual application was vague, the premise is mighty promising. How many kids will go crazy for this product? And then want more Mario games? For the Wii Us which their parents bought them so they can play with their Amiibos?

Admittedly, it might be a slow-burner until Nintendo lets you actively control the character a la Disney Infinity or Skylanders, but right now its inclusion in Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart is surely enough to pique interest.

After the pertinent message from Fils-Aime that “there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun,” we were treated to the debuts of Yoshi's Wooly World and Captain Toad Treasure Tracker.

Both looked charming, but Yoshi’s Wooly World particularly so. A spiritual successor to Kirby’s Epic Yarn, the game encourages you to explore the secrets in its knitted world without the pressure of a time limit. Plus, you can chew up and spit out other Yoshis, in a bizarre cannibalistic twist of Nintendo logic (a big highlight for me).

Eiji Aonuma drummed up anticipation for the Legend of Zelda reveal by dipping back into the past with glimpses of Wind Waker and A Link Between Worlds. By the time he clicked his fingers to reveal that gorgeous vista, Nintendo fans at IGN were preemptively gasping.

The trailer for The Legend of Zelda for Wii U was gorgeous, showing off a painterly art style and the promise of boundless exploration. If the final game looks as good as this small slice, it will surely be another big, much-needed system-seller for Nintendo. It’s just a shame we have to wait until sometime in 2015 to get our hands on it.

A release date for Pokemon Alpha Ruby and Omega Sapphire followed, while Bayonetta 2 got major screen time as one of the Wii U’s only significant third-party games. Hyrule Warriors, of course, is another, and while there was emphasis placed on three new playable characters, the demonstration felt a little flat after the stunning Zelda reveal. That's a tough act to follow.

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is the Wii U sequel to 2005’s Kirby: Canvas Curse for the DS, and showed off its lovely clay aesthetic in HD. It was followed by a trailer for one of the briefing's only 'serious' games - if you take that word at face value - Xenoblade Chronicles X. This RPG fantasy series has a big following behind it, so it's great to see it coming to the new generation. But again, a shame about that '2015' afterthought.

Perhaps Nintendo's most exciting announcement this year - or at the very least, its most creative - was Mario Maker, a new creation tool that allows you to design your own Mario levels using all the pieces found in the original Super Mario Brothers.

Like LittleBigPlanet and Minecraft, Mario Maker promises to inspire budding creators, but this time it's offering them a toolkit that's already warmly familiar. It's an inspired idea, and one that seems so obvious now that it's a reality.

Alongside Amiibo, Mario Maker suggests that Nintendo is aggressively pursuing dominance in the family-friendly market that it's lost in recent years.

The conference ended on a high note with the reveal of Splatoon, a colourful new online multiplayer shooter which tasks you to claim territory against your friends via frantic ink-spraying.

While all the talk of 'ink' and 'squid' eventually proved hysterical, there was some truly clever game design on display here. It's one of the most original ideas we've seen at E3 so far; here's hoping its reliance on an actual online Nintendo community doesn't prove its undoing.

While we do hear the same "we're throwing away the rulebook" mantra from Nintendo year after year, it's hard to deny the simple joy this morning's digital event brought to fans. We can be cynical about Nintendo's future all we want, but the publisher is still bringing smiles to our faces, and that's a powerful thing.